The heart of the wise inclines to the right,
but the heart of the fool to the left

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Why Guardians of the Galaxy Matters and Will Not Matter

(Spoilers are limited to names and places of characters and
generalizations of story conclusions.)

James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy is quick. It moves with deft speed through
characters, scenes, story pieces, combat sequences, moral conundrums and always
present humor. I found it to be fun, humorous, and complex. It is a pinnacle of
the great American art form, the blockbuster summer movie. Great tie-ins to the
other Marvel movies, edge of the seat adventure and subtle actions by off-focus
characters that fill in the world as real and not a mere set piece on camera. A
tree powerfully voiced by Vin Diesel. A cybernetic being resembling a raccoon
with a wicked sense of humor and affinity for large weapons. We see Titans,
empires, and galaxy spanning political machinations. Flashing lights and witty dialogue
and eye candy coalescing into one enormous mound of cotton candy. It passes
time enjoyably, but departs from the superhero movie norm by failing to nourish.

Guardians is a
pinnacle and a new standard of what a blockbuster summer movie can, and maybe should be visually At no time is there an animation awry, no sound
emits out of place, no character is poorly shown. The suspension of disbelief
is complete, and one is transported into a world far beyond our own. It’s
magic, and it is what a good movie ought to do. But I cannot imagine what the
next frontier is. In my lifetime, we have moved beyond the mantra that ‘the graphics
are so much better’ for the next big movie and the next big game console. Today,
the ‘graphics’ are so reliably superb (Pacific
Rim, The Avengers, Super 8) that there is no room for significant
improvement. A simultaneous trend in storytelling has been to pace faster, to
tighten up the sequences, to accelerate the story for an audience with failing
attention spans. The pace Gunn sets in Guardians
is warp 9; comprehensive stories cannot develop faster in the future. Americans, we treasure our witty dialogue and
want ‘take-home’ lines to pepper our conversations on and off Facebook. From Guardians, there will be no shortage of
one-liners, not the least of which starts (I
am…spoiler).

I suspect that human nature has always facilitated at least two
manners of storytelling. There are stories we tell to amuse, and stories we
tell to expand ourselves. Stories for amusement pass the time, offer escape
from the mundane, tell us about whom people are, and provide glimpses of worlds
and times beyond our own. Stories that expand us inspire, instill morality, illustrate
good versus evil, pass the time, offer escape from the mundane, tell us whom
people can be, draw us into worlds and times beyond our own, and have the capacity
to endure. This endurance springs from being at least partly rooted in the
character of the divine. It is the character of God to love, to protect, to
give life, to prosper, to be victorious, and to sacrifice. The latter stories
possess some measure of this.

Compare two movies in the same universe: The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Both are successful movies at the peak of their
craft with enormous pop culture resonance.
Guardians’ is a story told only to amuse. Part of the entertainment offer
is mockery of the story, intentionally destroying the atmosphere of nobility
that may incidentally creep up on the characters. The sole moral direction appears
to be ‘I don’t have friends, we’re totally
doing stuff together, let’s be friends because friends are the most important part
of life. Also I mostly don’t trust you.’ Guardians is a mirror to this cultural moment. It is loud and brash
and self-depreciating and in constant search for the next diversion. It borrows
weight and gravity by using words of which the audience will have a passing but
incomplete understanding. Eastern myth is found in the vile Ronan (pronounced Ronin); the Greeks are not
forgotten so long as Thanos and the Titans exist; the God of Abraham still
resonates so long as the foul Ronan is called The Accuser and Gamora (pronounced: Gomorrah) walks among us. It
reflects today because our affections lie with the outlaws and those on the
fringe, but there is somehow a powerful yet benevolent government at the end of
the day to offer us solutions (Nova
Prime). The religious are the
troublemakers (Ronan and his Kree-ness). Our
heroes are a band of misfits who claim no identity beyond individual selfish
greed or revenge (except the tree (of
life?)). Only vaguely does the team form through a collective self-interest
(for money, pronounced Units) that is
treated with featherweight gravity within the film and finds little resonance
in my heart. There is no moment where the characters must strive to be greater
beings then they have been before.

The Avengers is
something different. The Avengers are a team formed to accomplish something greater
than the sum of the parts; it requires sacrifice of the team members to be part
of the whole. It represents a morality that says ‘Other people are more important than me, and I have the ability to make
a change for the better. I am and will be the shield of protection and the
sword of justice’. As in Tolkien’s The
Lord of the Rings and Lucas’ Star Wars,
Whedon’s Avengers show heroes
becoming something greater then themselves. Guardians
lacks in this essential, and I expect it will be largely irrelevant within a
decade.

For the sake of my children to come, I find this irrelevance
a desirable conclusion. The stories I want the children of my clan surrounded
by should build up, edify, and offer a life giving view of the world. Classically,
Homer’s Odysseus endures the foul play of beings beyond humanity to return to
Ithaca, not for the land and treasure alone but to reunite with Penelope and restore
justice. In literature, we find Tolkien’s Eowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan, following
her conviction and entering battle with Merry the hobbit at her side, which led
to her circumventing the witchcraft, striking down the foul undead lieutenant of
Sauron and changing the course of battle. More recently, Spiderman’s Uncle Ben cautions
us “With great power comes great responsibility”. Del Toro in Hellboy ponders: “What makes a man a man? A friend of
mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think
so. It’s the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how
he decides to end them.”

Guardians
of the Galaxy, for its fine craft and stupendous storytelling, does not build
up, edify or nourish the parched places. There is no call to the heights of
greatness, only an approbation of the false bravado and persistent mockery of all
subjects within reach. Here lies the empty humor of sarcasm and bitterness,
which does not give life. Watch and be amused, for Guardians does amuse. But man was not meant to subsist on cotton candy
alone, be sure to feast well elsewhere.

1 comment:

Interesting. I rather thought that the Guardians became reasonably selfless toward the end. Sure, they were joking at everything in sight, but I don't think that diminishes their personal sacrifice.

I think you may have misread the moral message. It's not, "let's just go be selfish," it's the story of a band of outlaw loners who decide to do the right thing in the end and that it's better to be friends than to be selfish and alone.

It doesn't hammer you over the head with the message of selfless righteousness like Thor, but it's still there.

Actually, now that I think about it, it does kinda hammer you over the head. The ending has the team risking their lives just to make a chain and save one another when they really don't need to. They could have just let Peter die and that would have been it, but they didn't.Come to think of it, I actually think Guardians' moral message is a lot more impactful than Avengers'. Avengers is a team of heroes basically doing their jobs, but Guardians has a group of criminals having somewhat of a life turnaround. Tony Stark hugging a missile isn't nearly as big a deal from a character perspective as the Guardians making the chain.